By Bob Allen
The Southern Baptist Convention lost more than 200,000 members last year, according to statistics released just ahead of the 2015 SBC annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio.
Annual statistics compiled by LifeWay Christian Resources, the convention’s publishing arm, showed total membership just under 15.5 million. Down from 15.7 million in 2013, LifeWay termed the loss of 236,467 members the largest one-year drop since the denomination started compiling statistics in 1881.
Baptisms, long regarded a bellwether of denominational vitality, declined for the third year in a row. Last year Southern Baptist churches baptized 305,301 new believers, 5,000 fewer than in 2013 and the lowest number since 1947.
Southern Baptists continue to plant new churches. Last year the number of congregations increased by 374 to 46,449. Fewer people are attending church, however. Weekly worship attendance averaged 5.6 million in 2014, down nearly 3 percent from the previous year, translating to $20 million less dropped into offering plates.
It marked the eighth straight year of declining membership for the nation’s second-largest faith group behind Roman Catholics. Today 807,000 fewer people sit in Southern Baptist pews than in 2006.
Ed Stetzer, head of LifeWay Research, says the trend goes back much further, to slower rates of growth in the 1960s and 1970s followed by plateau and then gradual decline. If it continues, Stetzer predicts the SBC will follow the same trajectory of the so-called “mainline decline,” long presumed by SBC conservatives to have been caused by liberal theology.
Preserving evangelistic zeal was a driving force behind the “conservative resurgence” movement of the 1980s and 1990s that produced a more conservative denominational leadership at the cost of losing former SBC churches now affiliated with smaller groups such as the Alliance of Baptists and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
Current SBC leaders are particularly concerned about the number of baptisms. Reported baptisms have fallen eight of the last 10 years, with last year’s the lowest total since 1947. Since a record 445,725 baptisms in 1972, baptism statistics have declined by more than 30 percent.
Next week’s SBC annual meeting will include a Tuesday night prayer gathering seeking a next “Great Awakening,” a term used to describe various periods of religious revival in American history. Just prior to the convention, the SBC Executive Committee will consider removal of an Alabama church already ousted from its local association because the pastor and an unpaid staff member said publicly they support same-sex marriage.
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Decline in SBC membership, baptisms sparks leaders’ concern
SBC baptism, membership numbers fall
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